JOHN BRILEY

14 Dec

(25 June 1925 - 14 December 2019)

The screenplay, theatre and television writer John Briley, who has died aged 94, was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA. He first worked in public relations for General Motors and then joined the US Air Force, eventually being posted to Britain at RAF Northolt. It was there that he began his writing career. After gaining a PhD in Elizabethan drama at the University of Birmingham, he left the air force and joined MGM Studios as a staff writer. He wrote the Spike Milligan comedies Invasion Quartet (1961) and Postman’s Knock (1962) and then adapted the John Wyndham sci-fi novel Children of the Damned. This was followed by Hammerhead and Pope Joan with Liv Ullmann. That Lucky Touch starred Roger Moore and Susannah York, while Richard Burton was in The Medusa Touch. Both Eagle’s Wing and Enigma starred Martin Sheen after which came Briley’s most successful screenplay for Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, for which Briley won an Academy Award. He worked with Attenborough again on Cry Freedom, the Steve Biko story. Before that he wrote Marie for Sissy Spacek and adapted the James Clavell novel Tai-Pan. Following Sandino with Kris Kristofferson he wrote Christopher Columbus: The Discovery for Marlon Brando. His last film was Molokai in 1999. He had many unproduced film scripts and also wrote for television and published several novels. John Briley married Dorothy Louise Reichart in 1950 and they have four children.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

JOHN BRILEY

JEREMY BULLOCH

ANN REINKING